Anthem by Ayn Rand
Posted: January 25, 2014 Filed under: Audiobook, Books, Fiction | Tags: Audiobook, Ayn Rand, Books, English, Objectivism Leave a comment
I just love this short dystopian anticommunist manifesto! It's so full of fresh air.
Back several years ago I listened to (not read) Altas Shrugged, and it was amazing. Now, with my renewed interest in audiobooks, I should seize the moment and listen to all of Rand's body of work, I guess – as her words sound much more impressive and powerful when read out loud to you. Well, to me, for I shall not get involved with other men's preferences nor be bound by them 😉
I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold.
For the word “We” must never be spoken, save by one's choice and as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within man's soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils on earth, the root of man's torture by men, and of an unspeakable lie.
The word “We” is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages.
What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and the impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and to obey?
But I am done with this creed of corruption.
I am done with the monster of “We,” the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.
And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride.
We have hundreds more books for your enjoyment. Read them all!
This god, this one word:
“I.”
Enron by Lucy Prebble
Posted: January 25, 2014 Filed under: Audiobook, Books, Theater / Drama | Tags: Audiobook, Books, English, Enron, Lucy Prebble, Theater 1 Comment
A rather grotesque theater play, which oversimplifies the Enron story a bit, to make it into a light and more or less funny comedy.
The thing which I don't like about such comedies – though insignificant, you can still sense some tiny whiny socialist feel about them – oh, all those greedy bastards, they were after the money, the money is the root of all evil blah blah. Well, who is John Galt?
The Fata Morgana Books by Jonathan Littell
Posted: January 22, 2014 Filed under: Books, Fiction | Tags: Books, English, Jonathan Littell Leave a comment
Now, what a strange book! I now eagerly and in vain try to read anything and everything that Jonathan Littell publishes (I'm sure that's post-traumatic Les Bienveillantes effect similar to a drug), but this recollection of various short stories is indeed very strange. Some of them were written before, some after The Kindly Ones, so this is not a real proper new book – rather, as Irvine Welsh once brilliantly put it, some reheated cabbage.
From one angle, the book often resembles the terrific signature style of Les Bienveillantes writing, and you want to think – vow, Obersturmbannführer Aue is back – but the key difference between Littell's style per se (here) and the real Aue novel is the brilliant, mesmerizing, can't-put-it-down story of The Kindly Ones, the one that The Fata Morgana Books lack completely. In absence of a proper storyline, my mind drifted away from the text every 5 minutes, and I had to read, and re-read, and re-read again. Maybe, it would've felt differently in Russian, the language I read The Kindly Ones in, who knows.
So in the end, the book was short, and I kinda suffered through it ))) The étude about the missing planes was quite ok, and the last story had a distinctive Cortázar / Borges element about it – but due to extreme gay part of it, if I now say I liked it, I would probably be in violation of Russia's recent notorious homophobic laws – and frankly, it's not an alluring read for a straight person, umm… but even taking that element aside, the story, to my mind, lacked story – and that was key why it didn't click with me.
Still, even with my lukewarm feel about this book, the eye-opening effect of Les Bienveillantes remains strong – and I will rush to the book store to buy whichever new novel Littell writes. And better sooner than later.
Speed the Plow by David Mamet
Posted: January 20, 2014 Filed under: Audiobook, Books, Theater / Drama | Tags: Audiobook, Books, David Mamet, English, Filmmaking 1 Comment
I just love David Mamet – and truly enjoyed Speed the Plow dramatized by Jeff Goldblum and Adam Arkin.
Written on a topic Mamet is so knowledgeable about – the movie business. The fun version of Bambi, huh 😉 And it's just 1 hr 20 mins. Bought it on audible as a trial book maybe 2 years ago – and now got my hands on it. Grrrreat.
As far as I know, Madonna played the leading female role on Broadway – shall I search YouTube for the record of the performance? Hm
The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen
Posted: January 20, 2014 Filed under: Audiobook, Books, Documentary, Non-fiction | Tags: Audiobook, Books, English, Masha Gessen, Russian History, Vladimir Putin 1 Comment
After seeing this book being sold in virtually every European airport newsstands in the course of the past two years, I finally decided to get down to reading it – actually, reading and listening to it, 50/50 style – just at the same time as its author published a new book about Pussy Riot.
As Gessen has always been an avid and harsh critic of the regime, I expected something extremely one-sided – and, to an extent, it was. Frankly, for a person that follows Russian politics more or less regularly, it had nothing new nor gave any new insights – so in a sense, indeed it was aimed at international audiences, not the local Gessen readership body. My gut feel, though, that this ain’t the reason why this book was never published in Russian – as I would love to give it to my wife’s 77yo granddad to read, in order to provide a one-sided answer to his no less one-sided Channel One view of the world.
If I start the count, it would be the enumeration of buzzwords: KGB, Gorbatchev, dissidents, the 1991 Putch, Gaidar times, October 1993, the first Chechen war, Berezovsky, Yeltsin losing popular support, the successor plan, who is Mr. Putin, the Moscow and Volgodonsk bombings, the notorious Ryazan FSB “training”, замочить в сортире, the second war, the President for the people, Gusinsky and NTV, Berezovsky in exile, Kursk, Nord-Ost, the Soviet anthem yet again, Yushenkov, Beslan, Politkovskaya, Ramzan, Litvinenko, Khodorkovsky, Baikal Finance Group, Browder, Magnitsky, the Gelenjik palace, a short Medvedev intermission, the list goes on and on and on. For foreign readers, though, it seems to be a neat collection of whatever bad happened in Russia in the past decade or so.
The one thing that, surprisingly, was very new and interesting to me, was Gessen’s very detailed view on Putin’s first post-USSR boss St. Pete’s mayor Anatoly Sobchak. Apart from a conspiracy theory that Mr. Sobchak was poisoned (ummm, though I find anything possible, this is kind of hard to believe), Gessen portrays Sobchak as an anti-liberal goon that tricked the old dissidents that brought him to power and who seeked no reforms – he rather was after raw political power, not exactly Game of Thrones style, but close. This view of Mr. S seems to go in line with whatever recollections I have of the gentleman, despite some recent propaganda to the contrary.
And secondly, the book’s epilogue, written around the time of and about December 2011 protests, now reads a bit naive and sad. “It is a tiny moment of great change,” – Gessen writes. Oh well.
P.S. … and now I love amazon’s audible.com and whispersync audiobooks! Yikes!
Moth City Seasons 1-3 by Tim Gibson
Posted: January 4, 2014 Filed under: Comic, Fiction | Tags: Books, Comic, English, Tim Gibson 1 Comment
I couldn't wait till the final 2 issues of this unique and beautiful 8-issue graphic novel and went through Seasons 1-3 (issues 1-6) in a blast.
Tim Gibson managed to create a whole new approach to digital comic books, no less – technically, it's nothing new, but once put together, it's kinda revolutionary – and he made that on the backdrop of quite a thrilling carnage story that makes it difficult to put it down. Book noir + the living dead + totalitarian regime in early XX century China – I know, it reads like total stereotype nonsense crap – but miraculously, it's not. You just wait for 2 final issues and read though it all. I will, again. Plus, it's a great way to ease my mind from reading The Fata Morgana Books that doesn't go easy for me.
Saga of the Swamp Thing by Alan Moore
Posted: January 1, 2014 Filed under: Comic, Fiction | Tags: Alan Moore, Books, Comic, English Leave a comment
Xmas sale on comiXology hooked me up with Alan Moore's iconic Swamp Thing saga that I've never read.
Proves one thing right, the thing one can be certain about Moore's comic book universe – you can't just read his stuff flipping through the pages and running down the storyline at the speed of light – oh no, he requires you to crack them, read every word, suffer through it in a sense. From Hell is the best example of a great but difficult to read masterpiece of his.
A funny observation for trash movie fans – for a person unfamiliar with the Swamp Thing character, I do have to admit that Troma's no less iconic Toxic Avenger looks kinda like him.
All in all, that's another Moore's superhero novel like Watchmen or V for Vendetta (actually, written well ahead of both) that doesn't have a chewing gum effect at all – vice versa, you dig your teeth in and you work it, like you would with a proper rib eye – and unless you have bloody gums or heartburn, you should like it.
Clumsy: A Novel by Jeffrey Brown
Posted: December 29, 2013 Filed under: Comic | Tags: Books, Comic, English, Jeffrey Brown Leave a comment
This book has a great mix of young adult romance and insecurity that make for a very good set of short stories, which I loved – but, by God, it is drawn so painfully ugly (on purpose, I’m sure) that my eyes bled. Ummm
The Walking Dead Vol. 115-118 by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard
Posted: December 16, 2013 Filed under: Comic, Fiction | Tags: Books, Comic, English, Robert Kirkman, Zombie Leave a comment
Decided to catch up on several months of unread issues of The Walking Dead – and quickly went through volumes 115 to 118. The thing is, if you read just one issue, it's boring – but if you read at least three at once, you get the pace.
Kirkman went into a new story arc called All Out War, a total of 12 issues (8 more to come), with people going after people, guns trotting et al.
The most interesting thing about the comic book now is to compare it to the AMC series – the storyline has never been the same, sure – but even character wise, actions and personalities differ a lot. On TV, the bad guys start the war, while Rick proposes to lay down everyone's guns and quietly live in peace – while in the original comic book world, Rick is the attacker, and his motto is – no killer must be left alive. Gruesome and much more real, eh.
Batman: Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli
Posted: December 15, 2013 Filed under: Comic, Fiction | Tags: Batman, Books, Comic, David Mazzucchelli, English, Frank Miller, Masked Vigilante Leave a comment
Took the time to go through Batman: Year One, an integral part of Miller’s Batman series. As a prequel to the first Dark Knight, it’s a short book indeed, serialized as four issues in 1987.
Miller’s writing is impeccable – as always, I guess – story-wise, Year One was a bit less complex and thought-provocative than the Dark Knight Returns and the Dark Knight Strikes Again, which were full of questions whether the glorious masked vigilante was a fascist of sorts, pure essence of a lynch mob dressed in a shiny black suit with a cape, acting under the cover of the night as the judge, the jury and the executioner all-in-one.
And no, Miller’s books have nothing to do with Chris Nolan’s blockbusters, that took the title but almost nothing else from them. And better so.
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